DAY 43. Auresnede Pires Stephan (Prof. Eddy)

Auresnede Pires Stephan (Prof. Eddy) is a university professor and a consultant on projects, curator and coordinator of design awards and shows.

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What is your impression about a brand called Brazil?

What would be the “Brazil Brand” … one more image

to sell … products … culture…..art….., and even design.

Well, in this great challenge, let’s hear our poets and

lyricists, who knows if it will not be in their metaphors

possible reflections to begin a dialogue on

this universe so complex that we could call

Brasilidade (Brazilianity)!!

Let’s start with Ari Barroso, that through this vainglorious Aquarela do Brasil takes us to an imaginary real country.

“Brazil, my Brazilian Brazil

My intriguer “mulato”

[…]

Brazil of my love

The land of our Lord

To me!

[…]

Ô! Open the curtain of the past

Take the black mother out of the Cerrado*1

Put the Congo King in the Congado*2

[…]

I want to see this Lady walking

Dragging through the saloons

Her lace dress.

To me!

[…]

Oh! This coconut tree that gives coconut

Where I tie my hammock

On clear moonlit nights

Ô! This gorgeous and brunette Brazil

Is my Brazilian Brazil

The land of samba and tambourine….”

*1 Cerrado: a vast tropical savanna ecoregion of Brazil

*2 Congado: an Afro-Brazilian cultural/religious ritual

The letter of Brazil’s National Anthem…

[…]

A giant by thine own nature,

thou art a beautiful, strong and intrepid colossus,

and thy future mirrors thy greatness.

[…]

Eternally lying in a splendid cradle,

by the sound of the sea and the light of the deep sky,

thou shinest, O Brazil, garland of America,

illuminated by the sun of the New World!

Deixa a vida Me Levar (Let Life Take Me) by Zeca Pagodinho

I’ve been through almost everything in this life

In terms of material wealth,

I’m still waiting for my turn

I confess that I am from a poor background

But my heart is noble,

that’s how God made ​​me

[…]

I can only raise my hands to the sky

Appreciate and be faithful

To the destiny that God has given me

If I don’t have everything that I need

With what I have, I live

Carefully I carry on

[…]

And let life take me (Life takes me!)

And let life take me (Life takes me!)

And by Cazuza…Brazil Show Your Face (Brasil mostra tua cara)

Brazil

Show up your face

I wanna see who will pay

For us to be like this

Brazil

And so we can open a dialogue through a synthesis of the metaphors described above:

“We need to open the curtains of the past, trying to know where we should tie our hammock, because so far we are lying in the splendid cradle, confessing that we are poor, not having what we need, anyway thanking and lifting hands to the heavens … and letting life take me … and leading everyone to an uncertain fate”.

And maybe from the briefing above we can start an anthropological and conceptual reflection, where all Brazilian citizens assume their actual responsibilities facing the challenges inherent that will be the construction of a “country of the future”.

And here is a questioning of the late anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro:

” For many years we have been in the condition of the Xavante Indians that, once they have learned to use steel axes, could no longer dispense them and found themselves tied to their suppliers. We are falling again into the risk of subordination, represented by reliance on standards and on imported know-how”.